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New article from me for @CAmericain_mag , inspired by watching ‘The Warzone’, which evoked strong memories of the terrifying period of nuclear fear in the early 1980s, and its various representations in literature, film, TV, etc.
‘When I have taught students cultural history of the early 1980s, I have regularly stressed how powerful the fear of nuclear war was for many growing up in or living through that period. Most of those I have taught were born or grew up in a period following the fall of the Berlin Wall, and as time goes on, knowledge of the Cold War, or even communism, can be increasingly vague. My knowledge now of the fall of communism and has changed my perspective on the early 1980s, but this does not lessen the memories of the impact at the time.
I recall many discussions with others at my school as to whether or when we thought there would be a nuclear war. Some were convinced this would happen within the next ten years; others thought it would happen before the millennium. But most of those I knew were sure it would happen, so that it was just a question of which conflict would spark it. I remember feeling a sense of hopelessness and depression from all of this, wondering what the point was of planning for the future.
[…]
…the black TV comedy Whoops Apocalypse, imagining a nightmarish scenario in which a comically inept US president is advised by a fundamentalist fanatic, and a Labour government in the UK comes to join the Warsaw Pact. This is combined with a wide range of global incidents based on real events, which lead to the accidental detonation of a nuclear bomb in Israel, en route to being used to help the brother of the deposed Shah of Iran, then rapid escalation ending with global annihilation.
In 1984, the threat of nuclear annihilation was at the heart of a No. 1 hit, Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Two Tribes”. In the video, actors playing Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko are in a wrestling match as a metaphor for the struggle for world domination. Over the top of the song, we hear narration from the original government information films of Protect and Survive (1975-76), spoken by actor Patrick Allen. Another song which hit No. 1 that year in the UK was the English version of “99 Luftballons” by the German band Nena; I recall few people noticing that this was a song evoking helium balloons being released and being mistaken for enemy invasion, leading to nuclear escalation.
[….]
The culture I remember from the 1980s involved large-scale dissent towards Western governments offsetting a general political rightwards drift. But the existence of this scenario demonstrated a lot of what was valuable about the societies in which it occurred. They could broadcast portrayals of their own destruction, ridicule official advice, and question or satirize the motivations and purposes of those holding power. It would be terrible to lose the capacity for this, and that is one of the many reasons I believe the West to be worth defending. ‘
cafeamericainmag.com/my-cold-war/
‘When I have taught students cultural history of the early 1980s, I have regularly stressed how powerful the fear of nuclear war was for many growing up in or living through that period. Most of those I have taught were born or grew up in a period following the fall of the Berlin Wall, and as time goes on, knowledge of the Cold War, or even communism, can be increasingly vague. My knowledge now of the fall of communism and has changed my perspective on the early 1980s, but this does not lessen the memories of the impact at the time.
I recall many discussions with others at my school as to whether or when we thought there would be a nuclear war. Some were convinced this would happen within the next ten years; others thought it would happen before the millennium. But most of those I knew were sure it would happen, so that it was just a question of which conflict would spark it. I remember feeling a sense of hopelessness and depression from all of this, wondering what the point was of planning for the future.
[…]
…the black TV comedy Whoops Apocalypse, imagining a nightmarish scenario in which a comically inept US president is advised by a fundamentalist fanatic, and a Labour government in the UK comes to join the Warsaw Pact. This is combined with a wide range of global incidents based on real events, which lead to the accidental detonation of a nuclear bomb in Israel, en route to being used to help the brother of the deposed Shah of Iran, then rapid escalation ending with global annihilation.
In 1984, the threat of nuclear annihilation was at the heart of a No. 1 hit, Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Two Tribes”. In the video, actors playing Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko are in a wrestling match as a metaphor for the struggle for world domination. Over the top of the song, we hear narration from the original government information films of Protect and Survive (1975-76), spoken by actor Patrick Allen. Another song which hit No. 1 that year in the UK was the English version of “99 Luftballons” by the German band Nena; I recall few people noticing that this was a song evoking helium balloons being released and being mistaken for enemy invasion, leading to nuclear escalation.
[….]
The culture I remember from the 1980s involved large-scale dissent towards Western governments offsetting a general political rightwards drift. But the existence of this scenario demonstrated a lot of what was valuable about the societies in which it occurred. They could broadcast portrayals of their own destruction, ridicule official advice, and question or satirize the motivations and purposes of those holding power. It would be terrible to lose the capacity for this, and that is one of the many reasons I believe the West to be worth defending. ‘
cafeamericainmag.com/my-cold-war/
cafeamericainmag.com My Cold War Growing Up in Britain in the Nuclear 1980s 
